


Crashing and Burning

by GriffinRose



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 17:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7541809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GriffinRose/pseuds/GriffinRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For two years, Maddie has put up with Danny's ridiculous lies and excuses. She's tried everything to get through to him, but the pattern just goes on. She's so tired of fighting him on this all the time. And so, after two years, she's done. She doesn't care what her son does anymore, because Danny doesn't seem to care that he's her son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapters 1 and 2

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, this is also cross posted on Fanfiction.net!

Chapter 1

It was late, really late. Danny usually came home late nowadays, to the point where if he wasn’t home before midnight it was a normal night. Maddie sighed as she lay awake in bed. Jack snored loudly next to her but she couldn’t sleep anyway. She never did sleep until she was sure she heard Danny come in. Quite a few times she’d heard him come in through his window. She wasn’t even sure how he managed it, but she knew the front door hadn’t opened yet he was in his room. 

She didn’t know where they’d gone wrong with Danny. He’d been such a bright boy and looked like he might take after Jazz, but once he got to high school it was like he didn’t even care anymore. His grades slipped drastically and his report cards were disasters. They were constantly getting calls about him ditching class or just not even showing up. No amount of yelling or grounding seemed to affect him either. He would always just sit there in silence and apologize. In the beginning he’d tried to make excuses, but now he didn’t even try and do that. He knew they didn’t believe him, so he didn’t bother. 

Maddie sat up on the edge of the bed, looking out the window. Worse than his academic career though were all the injuries he seemed to get. Any night he was late he was usually sporting a few new injuries, though he always claimed they looked worse than they were. And since they were always gone within a few days, Maddie supposed maybe he was right, maybe they did just look worse than they were. 

He never offered explanations on those anymore either. 

It was like she didn’t even know him anymore. He was so distant…and he turned down any suggestion of bonding with them. She didn’t even know where he was most of the time. 

She was worried about him, but he wouldn’t tell her anything. He just mumbled you wouldn’t understand and left the room, disappearing into his room and then sneaking out his window. Maddie had tried everything she could think of…giving him space, grounding him, cutting him off from his friends, interrogating him…nothing worked. Nothing got through to him. It had been going on for three years now, steadily growing worse. He was a junior in high school and as far as she knew he had no plans for when he graduated. She’d tried to talk to him about that too but he just said he didn’t know, he’d think about it, and then left the room. 

Jazz was the only one he’d ever talk to, but she was busy in college now and Maddie hated bothering her. She knew how much work Jazz was doing and how important this was, but she couldn’t help thinking that Jazz could answer all her problems about Danny. 

She’d love to know where he was now. It was four in the morning and he still wasn’t home, a very unusual habit for him. Typically he was home by two. 

Part of her thought that maybe he’d stayed over a friend’s house and had forgotten to call again. He’d done that dozens of times over the years. Another part thought that maybe he had come in already and she just hadn’t heard, despite her carefully listening for it. She got up to check, knowing that she wasn’t going to sleep anyway. 

Danny’s door was still open and the light was off, but she peeked in anyway. There was no one on his bed; he still wasn’t home. Four eleven and he still wasn’t home. He was never this late. 

Something passed by Danny’s window, catching her attention for a moment. By the time she focused on it, it was gone and the door opening downstairs distracted her. 

Danny was finally home. 

The door closed quietly and she walked to the top of the stairs to meet him on them. He slowly climbed the stairs, his head bent as if to avoid looking at her. She crossed her arms. “Danny.”

He flinched and paused on the stairs, looking up at her. “Mom, what are you still doing up?” he asked. He was holding his right arm close to his body; another injury.

“I was worried about you. Do you know what time it is?” she asked. She was trying to be forceful, to show authority, but she knew it wasn’t coming through in her voice. She knew the words but had said them so many times she couldn’t put the emotion behind it anymore. 

“So late that it’s early?” Danny joked. He reached his left hand to scratch the back of his neck nervously. “Look, we both need sleep, how about you yell at me later?”

“Is this all a joke to you Danny?” she asked. She leaned against the wall tiredly. “Staying out late, coming home with injuries that you never explain…are you just trying to get our attention? To prove that you’re different than Jazz?”

“No, mom, it’s nothing like that at all,” Danny said. He slowly walked up a few more steps. 

“Then do you like the thrill of constantly lying to us? The adrenaline rush of cutting class?” Maddie pressed. 

Danny sighed and leaned against the wall as well. “I still have school in a few hours mom,” he softly reminded her. 

“You don’t seem to care about it anyway. Why not talk now?” Maddie demanded. He flinched again. 

“I do care about it, it’s just…not as high on my priority list as some other things,” he said carefully. 

“What other things Danny? What is so much more important than school?” she demanded, her voice rising. She pushed off the wall and stood with her feet planted at the foot of the stairs. Jack’s snores faltered slightly but then quickly resumed their normal rhythm. 

Danny sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry mom,” he said. 

Here we go, Maddie thought. “Danny, if you were really sorry, you would stop doing whatever it is you’re doing. Or at the very least you would tell me what you’re up to. You’re not sorry Danny.”

He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the stairs and rested his head against the wall. “If there’s one thing I’ve been honest about with you all these years, it’s that I am sorry.”

“I just don’t understand why you can’t tell me Danny,” Maddie said. He sighed. 

“You wouldn’t understand,” Danny said. “It’s just easier to not tell you.”

“Easier? Easier for who? You have detention almost every day, you’ve been grounded for the next four months and have been grounded for the past six, your grades are terrible and you’ll never be able to get into a good college…what part of this is easier?”

Danny sighed again. “Just…trust me, please?”

“Trust you as you slowly destroy your life?”

“I’m not…look, mom, I understand what it must look like to you, but I do know what I’m doing. I know what I’ve gotten into.”

“I just want to know that you’ll be okay…You come home with so many injuries I’m worried that one day you won’t come home at all.”

“Mom…” Danny started, looking up the stairs at her. Maddie sat down on the top of the stairs, putting her head in her hands. 

“I don’t know what to do with you anymore. You won’t listen to me or your father or any of your teachers…”

“You don’t have to do anything with me, just…trust me. Please.”

Maddie looked at him. He was looking up at her, pleading with his eyes for her to just let it go. She noticed he was holding his right arm close and saw bandages peeking out from under the jacket he was wearing. 

“What happened to your arm?” she couldn’t help asking. Danny glanced down at it in surprise.

“Oh…it’s just a scratch really,” Danny said emotionlessly. The lie slipped so easily from him. Maddie had heard it so many times before. It’s just a scratch. What bruise? Oh I just tripped. I fell out of a tree. He had so many lines that he constantly used, so many lies that she hadn’t even questioned at first. 

It was all so routine…and Maddie couldn’t keep practicing the same scene over and over like this anymore. 

Maddie sighed and stood up. “Fine. You don’t want to tell me, fine.”

“Mom…”

“You’ve made it clear you don’t want to tell me Danny. So congratulations, you win. I’ll stop asking. I’ll stop waiting up for you. I’ll stop trying to be a part of your life,” Maddie said, her voice near tears. She turned around and walked quickly down the hall to her room, Danny’s steps on the stairs quickly behind her.

“Mom I never wanted you out of my life,” Danny stated, standing uncertainly outside his door. Maddie paused outside of her room and half turned to him. 

“Well you sure fooled me,” she said, tears starting to fall down her face. Danny reached for her but she stepped into her room and shut the door, letting herself fall back against it. 

Jack’s snores didn’t falter in the slightest, completely unaware of his family falling apart around him.

Chapter 2

“Way to go Fenton,” Danny muttered to himself as Maddie shut the door. His parents’ door was never shut. He ran his hand through his hair again. 

He had never seen his mother look so…defeated before. She looked like she had completely given up. Worse, she had given up on him. He had really pushed it too far over the years. But with his ghost fighting what else was he supposed to do? He couldn’t control when the ghosts attacked. And tonight he’d been fighting a new upgraded Technus since midnight. Although truthfully he had spent two hours locked in a special cage he’d designed until Tucker was able to get him out…

Still, it made him feel terrible to know that his mother was like this because of him, because he couldn’t find the courage it took to tell her about his ghost half despite seeing how she’d react in different timelines. He’d come close a few times over the last three years, but a little voice in the back of his head told him to wait. It told him that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. He’d had nightmares of such an encounter going horribly wrong, and those always seemed to come to mind whenever he thought about telling them. 

Sam, Tucker, and Jazz weren’t really any help either. They all told him it was his decision and they’d support him in whatever he decided. He appreciated the support, but he really just wanted a straight yes or no answer from them. 

He finally walked into his room, gently shutting the door behind him. His arm throbbed a bit but he didn’t even care as he walked over to his bed and collapsed on it. He hugged his pillow close and was only conscious for a few more moments before sleep claimed him. 

DP

Danny skipped breakfast that morning and just went straight to school. He couldn’t help the disappointment he felt when he was at home, and so for once in his life he was early to school.

Most people were surprised to see him in class already, especially Sam and Tucker.

“No attacks this morning?” Sam asked as she sat down next to him. 

“Nope,” Danny said. Tucker sat down in front of Danny.

“You okay?” he asked. Danny thought it over and shook his head.

“It’s my mom,” Danny admitted. “She was still awake this morning when I got in.”

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other. “Let me guess, you’re grounded until you graduate?” Tucker tried. Danny shook his head.

“She didn’t ground me at all, actually. She said she was done.”

“Done? What do you mean?” Sam asked. A few more kids started to take their seats around the room; they only had another minute or two before first period started. 

“She’s giving up on me I think. She said she would stop asking questions and just let it be,” Danny said. He rubbed his forehead with his hand, tilting his head to his desk. “I’ve never seen her look so defeated…and it’s my fault.”

“Danny, I know you’ve been trying to wait for the right time to tell your parents. Maybe now is it,” Sam said. Mr. Lancer came in and called the class to order early, trying to get everyone organized before the bell. 

“I think I might have waited too long,” Danny spoke softly. Neither Sam nor Tucker heard him. 

He debated with himself all through class about telling his parents. The pros and cons circled around his head in the same dull monotones that they had been doing for three years. As much as he wanted to stop lying to them, he was terrified to know how they would take it. If they did accept him, changes would definitely be made to his current life. They wouldn’t just sit on the sidelines. But on the other hand, they might have some great insights on some of the ghosts he was always fighting. 

This was of course assuming they got past the whole ‘all ghosts are evil’ prejudice they’ve had since before Danny was born. 

Maybe he could ease them into it, start by mentioning how Phantom had saved the city last night…

That was about as likely to help his situation as actually transforming would. The second he mentioned Phantom’s name they’d go off on some tangent about him. If his mom was even talking to him, that is. After this morning he wasn’t so sure she would be. 

The rest of the day he spent imagining different scenarios of how telling them would play out. Some of them ended well with everyone happy and his life relatively the same. The worst ended with him on the table in the lab tied down and being dissected. These thoughts made him think every time that he was better off just not telling them.

But then he’d think of his mother and how broken she looked when she closed the door. 

“I have to tell them,” he said out loud while they were walking home. Sam and Tucker glanced at him. They’d given him his space that day and tried to keep the teachers off of him. They were fairly certain he hadn’t even been aware of most of his surroundings during the day and just followed them around to class, but given his current situation they didn’t blame him. It was a lot to think through. They were just lucky no ghosts had attacked today. 

“Are you sure?” Sam asked. Danny nodded. 

“Regardless of what happens to me, they deserve to know the truth,” Danny decided. 

“Our doors are always open if you need to crash with us for a few days,” Tucker offered. Danny smiled wryly. 

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” he said. 

“Do you want us to be there with you?” Sam offered, putting a hand on Danny’s shoulder. 

“That might be a good idea,” Danny admitted. “Just give me a few days to try and soften her up and figure out how to go about it.”

“Be careful dude,” Tucker said. 

“Besides, they’re your parents, they will accept you,” Sam said confidently. Danny looked over at her and smiled. He wished he shared the same confidence as her about it. 

By the time he had made it home, his mother had already locked herself in the lab. He thought it best not to bother her and so proceeded up to his room.

As much as he didn’t want to, he sat down at his desk to start his homework. He had learned that if he pushed it off in favor of more appealing activities, he wouldn’t have time to do it later. Twenty minutes later though found him staring out the window in a daydream. He shook himself out of it and looked down at his math homework. It still didn’t make any sense, probably because he didn’t pay attention in class, so he gave up on it and pulled out his English homework. Another twenty minutes and he hadn’t actually absorbed anything he’d read, so he gave up on that too. 

He knew the only way he’d be able to concentrate again was if he just talked to his mother and got it over with. But he really didn’t want to do it alone. His mom loved him, he knew that, and she’d listen to him. At least, he hoped she would. 

Danny shook his head and got up from his desk. Maybe a snack would help. He made his way back downstairs and rounded the corner into the kitchen but stopped in his tracks when he saw his mother washing her hands in the sink. She glanced up at him, her eyes full of warmth for a moment before she remembered how disappointed she was. 

Danny shifted his eyes down. Guilt crushed down on him. Could he really wait until the weekend to tell her? It was only Wednesday, Jazz would be home late Friday night at the earliest…two whole days of dodging each other? Of trying to ignore this pressing guilt and that look of defeat in his strong mother’s eyes?

No, he couldn’t wait. He reached a hand into his pocket and fiddled with his phone.

“So…ah…are you starting dinner then?” Danny tried to ask casually. Maddie glanced at him again as she stepped over to the refrigerator.

“Yes,” she replied. Danny nodded. This was not going well at all…

“What are you making?” he asked.

“Chicken and rice,” came the short reply. Danny sighed and leaned against the doorframe. Maddie pulled a few things out of the fridge and set them on the counter. This was going to be harder than he thought. “It won’t be ready for a while.”

It was clearly a hint to tell him to go away, but he wasn’t going to take it. Instead, he walked a few more steps into the kitchen.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Danny asked. 

“No.”

He winced. Usually Maddie would have jumped at the chance to have someone help her with dinner. To not even want him to be in the same room…he had hurt her real bad. 

“Look, Mom…I think we need to talk,” Danny said. The words were out of his mouth before he’d fully decided he wanted to tell her. But it seemed right to do it now. 

“Can it wait? I’m busy,” Maddie said, pulling down bowls from the cabinets and starting the dinner preparations.

Danny walked over and put a hand on her forearm. “No, I don’t think it can. I think I’ve put this off long enough.”

There was no going back now. Tonight, he would either fix things with his mother or he’d be run out of town. At the moment, he wasn’t sure which was more likely.


	2. Chapters 3 and 4

Chapter 3

Mother and son stood in the kitchen, stiff and awkward. Danny took a few steps back from her, giving her a respectable physical distance to match the mental one she had created. No, she wasn’t the only one who had created that mental distance. That was just as much Danny’s fault, because he hadn’t told her sooner.

Maddie closed her eyes and looked away from him. “You already made it clear that you don’t want to tell me. Why change your mind now?”

Danny took a deep breath. “I haven’t told you before because…I was scared. I don’t know how you’ll react.”

Maddie turned her body away from him. “You told Jazz though, didn’t you? She’s always been covering for you, trying to make it seem like whatever you’re going through is normal…”

“I didn’t tell her, but she found out by accident. And the fact that she’s still proud of me despite knowing…please just remember that. Please remember that Jazz still believes in me.”

Maddie half-turned to him. “You act like I’m going to hate you for what you’re about to say.”

Danny swallowed nervously and looked away. “Well…it’s a strong possibility you might.” 

Maddie whirled and stepped towards him, taking him by the shoulders. “Danny I’m your mother! I could never hate you! If you really think that I could…then I did something wrong and I’m sorry!”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Danny said softly, placing his hands on top of hers. He didn’t move her hands though. For all he knew, this might be the closest he’ll ever be to his mother again. “It’s how you’ve always been against ghosts, how could I expect you to be any different with me?”

“Ghosts? What do ghosts have to do with anything?” Maddie asked, stepping back from Danny. He could see the gears running in her head, trying to figure it out. 

“Everything, actually,” Danny said. He took a few steps back of his own to the doorway, more for protection than anything else. 

“Have you befriended one? Is that why you’re always beat up?” Maddie demanded. 

Danny sighed. “Okay, before I explain anything else, please promise me you’ll let me finish explaining? And that you’ll keep an open mind? Can you please promise me that?” 

Maddie hesitated. She could see how much fear was in Danny’s eyes, and the idea that it was her that was causing him so much fear was absolutely abhorrent to her. “I promise.” She moved to sit down at the table, and Danny followed her carefully with his eyes. 

He took a deep breath and stepped forward back into the kitchen. “Okay…I’ll start small, and work my way up to the big secret, okay?” he said more to himself than to her. 

She nodded anyway. He really was in a bunch of knots about this…his whole frame was trembling.

“First,” he started, seeming to get a handle on himself again. “You have to accept that all ghosts aren’t evil.” As he expected, this was met with loud protestations and a heated passion. He simply raised his hand to make her be quiet. “You promised, remember?” 

She shut her mouth firmly and sat down again. He could tell the fire hadn’t quite gone out of her eyes yet, so he decided more explanation on that was needed. “Do you remember that college reunion we went to up in Wisconsin?”

She nodded. “But I don’t see how that—”

“Let me finish,” Danny interjected. “I met a ghost there, the Dairy King. He helped me—ah, that is…he let me out of a locked room and said that some ghosts just want to be left alone.”

“When were you locked in a room?” Maddie asked. She had thought that she’d kept pretty close attention to her kids…

“Not important. What is important is that he was a friendly ghost,” Danny said firmly. Maddie frowned and looked down at the table. 

“But that…”

“Goes against everything you believe, I know,” Danny said softly. He moved closer to the table, a gentle smile on his face. “A lot of what I’m about to tell you goes against what you believe. But you’re going to have to trust me.”

Maddie looked up at him, and for the first time she realized he wasn’t a little boy anymore. He was sixteen years old, and for once he looked even older than that. He looked like someone who had seen more things than anyone his age should have, done more than anyone could have. He looked like a man. 

“Okay…at least for the sake of argument, there are friendly ghosts,” Maddie said. Danny smiled at her.

“Thank you.”

“But even if I accept that…what does this have to do with you?” she asked. Danny swallowed nervously again.

“Well…for the last two years I’ve been…I guess you could say studying ghosts?” he said. Maddie blinked. Her son, studying ghosts? But he always denied any interest in them and avoided their ghost fighting inventions like the plague…

“Studying them?” she repeated dumbly. 

“Sort of…indirectly I guess. I’ve gotten to know a few of them. And yeah, some of them are pretty nasty and we’re definitely more enemies than friends…but some of them I consider my closest friends. There’s this whole pack of yeti ghosts in the ghost zone that I know I can rely on in a jam,” Danny said without thinking.

“The ghost zone?” Maddie repeated loudly, getting to her feet and slamming her hands on the table. “You’ve been in the ghost zone? Do you know how dangerous that is?”

Danny sighed and leaned back against the counter, rubbing the side of his face with one hand. When Maddie was done with her rant he raised a brow. “Yes, the Ghost Zone, yes I know it’s dangerous, but really, if you weren’t going to use it, why did you build a portal?”

Maddie was taken aback at the question. “Well, we’re still making preparations to ensure a safe trip…after all we’ll be completely surrounded by ghosts and we aren’t even sure what the environment will be like…”

“The first time I went into the Zone was an accident. I was in the cockpit of the Spector Speeder and Dad did something, knocking me inside. Everything was fine. The atmosphere was the same as here essentially, but the gravity is a lot less there. Oh, and humans are the ghosts there. You can still be hurt and everything, but you can pass through walls and stuff,” Danny explained. He could see her trying to process all of this.

“Why didn’t you ever tell us?”

“I wasn’t supposed to be there right? I didn’t want to get in trouble. I was getting grounded enough as it was before that,” Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Maddie sighed and nodded. That made sense…

“But you’ve been back there?” she demanded. Danny sighed. 

“Yes, I’ve been back there. I’ve explored it quite a bit actually. There’s still a lot I don’t know, and even more that I’ll never know, but I know the layout of most of the area right around our portal.”

The scientific side of Maddie wanted to work on this information right away. The maternal side though said Danny still had a lot more to tell her, and at the moment that was the more important issue.

“So for the last two years you’ve been studying ghosts? That’s why you’re home late and always injured? You’re…what? Befriending them?”

“Not exactly…most of the ones I see are here on a regular basis, and they’re usually just here to cause trouble. I do what I can to get rid of them, but usually not before a lot of damage has been done,” Danny said carefully, looking sideways at her. Maddie’s eyes narrowed.

“You’ve been fighting them?”

Danny nodded. “I guess it does run in the family.”

This was too much for Maddie to handle. Her baby boy, her son, her Danny was out fighting ghosts on a regular basis? He could have been killed! 

But…if all he was doing was fighting ghosts…he wouldn’t have been scared to tell them that. 

“What else is there? What aren’t you telling me?” Maddie asked. 

Danny swallowed nervously again and looked down at the floor. “Well…there’s a reason I got involved in all this ghost business, why I feel it’s my responsibility to keep the troublesome ghosts out of the town,” he started. He was shaking again. 

Maddie waited for him to continue on his own and sat down again. This was clearly the major secret he’d been hiding for so long, the one he couldn’t predict how she’d react. 

“Just…remember your promise to keep an open mind and to remember that Jazz still trusts me,” Danny said. Maddie nodded encouragingly. He took a deep breath. “It’s my responsibility…because I’m part of them. I’m part ghost.”

He looked at her as if he expected her to jump up and attack or something. She just blinked and turned her head slightly. 

“What?” she asked. 

“I’m part ghost,” he repeated, slightly more sure of himself. Maddie tilted her head the other way, a disbelieving smile widening on her face.

“But…that’s not possible…to be part ghost you’d have to be part dead,” Maddie said. 

“Yeah…we’re not sure how it works. Tucker thinks that when the portal electrocuted me it started to kill some of my cells, but then the ectoplasm just turned them to ghost cells which kept the rest of me alive. After that my body just found a way to balance the two opposite types of cells. Sometimes the human cells are the dominant ones and sometimes…sometimes the ghost cells are more dominant.”

Maddie was shaking her head. “Danny…what you’re telling me is impossible. You can’t be half dead and half alive at the same time.”

“Like I said, we’re not sure how it works,” Danny repeated. Maddie dropped her head into her hands.

“I thought you were going to tell me the truth Danny,” she said quietly, staring at the table. “This is impossible. How long have you been creating this story to tell me?”

“I’m not making this up! Look,” he said, turning his arm intangible and phasing it through the counter. He pulled a fork back out with his hand. “Only a ghost could do that!”

“But you’re not dead…you’re not dead!” Maddie screamed.

Danny raised his hands to try and calm her down. “No, I’m not,” he agreed. This seemed to calm Maddie down a little. She took several minutes to process this new information, but she just couldn’t make it add up in her head.

“Even if this were true, I think I would have noticed if my son was fighting ghosts all the time. Someone would have noticed,” Maddie said triumphantly. Danny bit his lip.

“They noticed all right…the part I mentioned where sometimes the ghost half of me is the more dominant part? That part changes how I look too. You’ve been seeing that side of me for years, you just didn’t know it was me.”

“I know you’re other side?”

He nodded; Maddie noticed he was trembling again, more than ever actually. “I’m…Danny Phantom.”

Maddie blinked. 

No. That couldn’t be possible. She had to draw the line there. That just was not possible. Phantom was a menace responsible for destroying half the town on a daily basis. That wasn’t her sweet little boy. 

“No,” she stated. “No you’re not.”

He sighed. “Open mind mom,” he reminded. “And remember, not all ghosts are evil?”

“Phantom is. You can’t be Phantom.”

He ran a hand over his forehead. Straight up denial had not been a scenario he typically pictured whenever this scene played out in his mind. 

“Don’t freak out, okay? But I’m going to show you that I am. First I’m turning off the ghost detection stuff…I don’t want it going off on me,” Danny said. She didn’t move as he flipped the switch next to the fridge. “You ready? No weapons, no attacking, right?” 

She nodded numbly. He swallowed and closed his eyes tightly. As he opened them, the familiar blue rings passed over his head and white hair fell into his eyes instead of black.

Maddie gasped and jumped out of her chair, knocking it backwards so it crashed to the floor. Jack’s voice came drifting up the stairs, asking if everything was alright. 

“Everything’s fine Dad,” Danny called down. He wasn’t ready to tell Jack yet…he had to know how this was going to play out first. 

“You…you’re really…but that’s not…this shouldn’t be possible…” Maddie stuttered, putting a hand to her forehead.

“Mom…?” Danny hesitantly took a step forward, reaching his arms out to try and comfort her.

“You stay over there!” she exclaimed. Danny froze. 

Rejection. This possibility had been one of the scenarios he’d often imagined. It was one of the worst ones. At least with the scientific curiosity he knew there was no hope of them ever accepting him again. With rejection…he couldn’t be sure if it was the initial shock or how she would always feel. 

“You…you can’t be my son,” she whispered. Her eyes darted back and forth on the floor like a cornered animal. 

Danny wanted to cry. “I’ll…I’ll just go away, for a while, okay? Take a few days, take as long as you need…but please…I am your son,” Danny said. His voice broke at the end. He didn’t wait to hear her respond before jumping into the air and disappearing through the wall of the house. 

Chapter 4

Gaining altitude, Danny flew over the city of Amity Park for an hour, letting the tears roll across his face where no one could see them. He’d been rejected by his own mother. If even she thought he was a freak…

He didn’t let himself finish that thought.

What was he supposed to do now? How long should he give his mother? Where was he supposed to go in the meantime?

He could easily spend a night at Sam or Tucker’s, but two nights was usually pushing it. Even if he rotated houses, their parents weren’t dumb. They would realize something was up. And he definitely didn’t need them prying right now. 

Eventually he set down on the flat roof of a building, curling up into a ball in the corner. He transformed back into Fenton and felt his phone in his pocket. He pulled it out, and then he paused. Should he call Sam or Tucker first? Or…

He flipped it open and pressed three, the speed dial for Jazz. She was the only one who could possibly get through to his mom and the only one who could actually try and understand the way he was feeling. He wanted her weird psychology stuff to say the right thing to him to make him feel better. She was the best person to call right now.

“Hello?” Jazz answered.

“Hey Jazz,” Danny said. 

“Hey what’s up? Everything cool over there?”

Danny hesitated in answering. The normal response to that was of course, but it really wasn’t.

“No, no it’s not,” he said truthfully. 

“What happened?” Jazz asked, her voice taking on that no-nonsense tone she’d inherited from their mother. 

“I told mom,” he stated. He stared at the vents on the roof, his face blank and expressionless. He’d already cried. He was done with that. 

“Told her wha—oh, wait…about Phantom? You told her about that?”

“Yeah.”

“How did it…I mean obviously she didn’t take it well…what happened?”

He told her everything, how the confrontation this morning had ended and how he’d felt he had no choice to tell her and how he thought he was ready to tell her. He thought he was ready to deal with this. 

How could he have ever been ready to deal with this though?

“She rejected you?” Jazz summed up when he was done. 

“Yeah…I don’t know what to do now.”

“I’ll call her and talk to her. I’ve got a test tomorrow morning so I can’t leave until lunch, but I’ll be home by dinner time to help sort this out. Where are you going to sleep tonight if you can’t go home?”

“Probably Tucker’s. He and Sam have both offered to let me crash there for a few days whenever I need to, but Sam’s parents don’t exactly like me.”

“You should head over to Tucker’s then. Get some sleep. You sound like you need it. I’ll call mom and do what I can tonight, and I promise I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Thanks Jazz. You’re the best sister a guy could have.”

“Thanks Danny. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you,” Danny said. They both hung up and Danny put the phone back in his pocket. He knew he should have headed straight to Tucker’s then, but he didn’t feel like uncurling himself from the corner. 

So he didn’t. He stayed for another hour or so, until his stomach growled loudly. He glanced down at it, frowning. Turning his eyes to the sky again, he decided now was as good a time as any to head over to Tucker’s. The sun would be going down soon, and he did still need to eat. 

Slowly he climbed to his feet, using the corner around him to help push himself to his feet. He wasn’t physically injured, but he couldn’t remember ever being so drained in his life. He almost couldn’t get the ghostly rings to appear and transform him, but they finally appeared and he jumped off the roof, taking stock of his location and making a beeline for Tucker’s house. 

He landed a block away in an alley and transformed there, walking back onto the street as Fenton. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he walked and kept his head down. No sooner had he started walking on the main road than he bumped into someone. Both he and whoever he hit stumbled.

“Hey, watch it!” a high-pitch accented voice exclaimed. Danny glanced at who he hit. It was Paulina, and her bags had fallen to the ground. She looked at him. “Oh, it’s you. Great, now I have loser all over me!” she complained. 

Danny blinked. Normally he would have been ecstatic to be this close to Paulina when none of her other friends were around, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He mumbled “Sorry” and looked away again, intending to just keep walking.

She didn’t say anything for a bit, but then she called after him. “Uh, not that I care, but are you okay?”

Danny paused in sheer shock at the question. He half-turned towards her. 

“You know, usually geeks like you would make a fumbling idiot out of themselves right now and pick up my bags,” Paulina said, her hands on her hips. Danny glanced down at her bags and then up at her. 

He walked back and picked them up, handing them to her without a single emotion crossing his face. She took them from him wordlessly, her eyes never leaving him. 

“You’re so weird,” she decided, turning briskly and walking away. Danny turned and did the same, knocking sheepishly on Tucker’s door. His father answered.

“Oh, hello there, Danny! Tucker didn’t tell us you were coming over,” he said. Danny managed a weak smile, but he knew it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I forgot to call ahead of time…sorry about that,” Danny said. Mr. Foley just smiled warmly and opened the door for him.

“It’s not really a problem. Come on in! My wife is just putting dinner on the table. Have you eaten yet?”

“No…not yet,” Danny said. He knew his acting was absolutely terrible right now, that there was no way this false smile on his face could fool anyone, but Mr. Foley didn’t question it. He tilted his head a little at the lack of emotion but led Danny into the kitchen. 

It was as he said, Mrs. Foley was just setting a pot roast on the table. Tucker was already sitting down and he smiled warmly when he saw Danny.

“Danny! Hey man!” Tucker greeted warmly.

“Hey Tuck,” Danny responded. Tucker frowned immediately. Something was wrong, it was obvious. Everything about the way Danny was standing screamed that he needed help. But it wasn’t physical…he wasn’t holding any limbs in pain or avoiding weight on one leg. So then…he must have told his mom then. And it didn’t look like it went well. 

“Why hello Danny!” Mrs. Foley said. “You’re just in time for pot roast! I hope you’re hungry!”

His stomach rumbled in answer and she laughed. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, a little color coming back into his cheeks. Mr. Foley got out another plate and more silverware for Danny, setting them in his usual seat next to Tucker. 

“Thanks,” Danny said. “Sorry to just barge in…”

“Oh it’s no problem! Certainly not the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last,” Mrs. Foley said cheerfully. “We don’t mind at all!”

He smiled a little. After answering the typical ‘how was your day?’ questions Mr. and Mrs. Foley started discussing what had happened at Mr. Foley’s work, leaving the two teens to try and talk quietly.

“You okay man?” Tucker asked. He didn’t turn his head to Danny, knowing that if they showed they were having a conversation it might be noticed by his parents.

“Not sure. I’ll tell you later,” Danny said. Tucker nodded. That would likely be the best he’d get for now, so he let it drop until later. 

Danny managed to clear his plate, but the food seemed tasteless to him. He knew it was just because of how he was feeling; Mrs. Foley’s cooking was absolutely incredible and could never be described as tasteless.

As soon as they could, Danny and Tucker excused themselves from the table and headed upstairs to Tucker’s room. Danny related to Tucker what had happened, falling into the same emotionless tone he’d had before. 

“I think you just scared her,” Tucker said. He got up from his spot and started fiddling around his computer. “Give it some time, let Jazz work her magic, and then everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

“I hope so,” Danny said. 

Tucker turned around, holding out two old joysticks. “In the meantime…it’s been awhile since we played Doom.”

Danny glanced up, a ghost of a smile on his face. A distraction was just what he needed right now.


	3. Chapter 5 and 6

Chapter 5

Maddie burned the chicken that night, and the rice was undercooked and bitter. Not that it mattered anyway, she had no appetite and she couldn’t taste what she did eat. She’d given Jack his plate down in the lab, but she had no idea if he’d even touched it yet. He was absorbed in his latest project, so she likely wouldn’t really see him until he was done. 

That left her alone at the kitchen table with nothing but her thoughts. And what terrible thoughts they were.

Her son…was a ghost. And not just any ghost. He was the worst ghost, the one that terrorized the town; the one that had kidnapped the mayor, and stole thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry. He was a menace.

No wonder he had lied to her for so long. He didn’t want her to find out that he was hurting people, tormenting them. 

But how could he not? If he was a ghost, that was just his nature. He couldn’t help that. She still didn’t fully understand how he was part ghost, but what he’s been up to since then all made sense. She should just be thankful that he took that aggressive hostility out on other ghosts most of the time. The town just got in the way a lot. 

Funny how she could rationalize Phantom’s actions when she thought of him as Danny. As her son, even the worst ghost she could think of could do no wrong. But that wasn’t right. Phantom was a menace, he deserved punishment. She couldn’t let personal feelings get in the way of that. 

So what was she supposed to do now? Arrest her son? Deport him to the ghost zone where all ghosts belonged? Capture him and experiment on him?

No. No, she drew the line there. Ghost or not, Phantom was her son. She couldn’t dissect her son. It didn’t matter how beneficial to science it would be, she would not do that him. She couldn’t do that to herself. 

But what if Phantom isn’t her son? What if Danny actually died years ago and was replaced with this shapeshifting ghost? It would explain why all their equipment went off around him…but he had sworn he was human. Could she trust his word?

She didn’t know what to believe anymore. 

The phone rang. She stared at it from the kitchen table, her half-eaten plate still in front of her. It rang again. Maddie didn’t move. She didn’t want to talk to whoever was on the other line. She didn’t want to talk to anybody. She wanted to curl up under a blanket and hide from the world, because any world where her son was actually Danny Phantom wasn’t a world she wanted to be in.

The answering machine picked up, filling the room with the voices of her family.

“You’ve reached the Fentons!” Jack boomed. 

“We’re not here right now,” Jazz chimed.

“We’re fighting ghosts!” Jack butt in.

“Or we’re busy down in the lab,” Maddie added.

“So leave a message, and we’ll get back to you,” Danny finished. Her heart twisted, but she couldn’t help the smile at how happy the four of them sounded, back when they’d been a family. At the same time, tears pricked at her eyes. Would they ever be like that again?

“Mom, it’s Jazz. I know you’re there, answer the phone.” 

Maddie perked up, but she didn’t leave the table.

Jazz sighed. “Look, I know learning about Danny is a big shock. I know it goes against everything you believe in, and I know what the media usually says about Danny. But the news doesn’t know the full story. There’s so much more going on than just a fight. Please, just pick up the phone and we’ll talk about this.”

Maddie put her head in her hands. Of course Jazz had called about this. That meant Danny had already spoken with her. She’d have to find out how he’d convinced her daughter he wasn’t a menace. 

“Danny’s a hero, Mom,” Jazz said. “I’m proud of him, of everything he’s done. I know you’re confused and maybe scared right now, but it’ll be fine. Just pick up the phone, please.”

Maddie glanced over at the device with sad eyes. A hero? A menace? What was the truth?

“Okay, then I’ll keep talking,” Jazz stated. “Danny has never hurt anyone on purpose, I promise you. He does his best to prevent people from getting hurt, even if it means letting the bad guy get away for a while. And Mom…if you could only see how many people he’s saved…” 

Maddie covered her ears. Phantom must have brainwashing powers on top of everything else. He was a no good ghost, just like every other ghost. He’s hurt people. He kidnapped the mayor, stole jewelry, destroyed the town on a daily basis…

“Look, the coming home late, the missed classes…it’s all because he’s protecting people. And his grades are so bad because he doesn’t have time to study. He prioritizes saving others over his schoolwork, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

The idea that Phantom had homework to worry about was comical, nearly as comical as the idea that he cared more about saving people.

“He’s a real hero. I wish you could see that,” Jazz said. “I have a scrapbook of his accomplishments here with me…I’ll bring it with me when I come home tomorrow. Danny won’t be back until I tell him it’s okay…so, take this time to adjust to the idea. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She finally hung up, leaving Maddie to her silence. Maddie was glad for the chance to think. There was too much conflicting information, too many contrasting thoughts. She didn’t know what to think, couldn’t process all the thoughts racing through her mind. 

“Maddie!” Jack yelled, pounding up the steps from the lab. He jumped into the kitchen, holding a mechanized feather duster. The white handle had a flaming green F on it, and the feathers had been replaced with dozens of small ectoplasm-coated knives. “I just finished the Fenton Splicer!” He held the duster out like a fencing sword, his other hand up in the air behind him. “This baby will slice a ghost to smithereens faster than it can say boo!”

“That’s great honey,” Maddie said. She couldn’t even work up the energy to smile.

Jack swished it around. “Where’s Danny? I want to show him my newest invention!”

Maddie’s body froze. Her thoughts diminished into single words stringing themselves along until finally completing a thought. Danny. Danny is ghost. Weapon hurt ghosts. Weapon hurt Danny. Must keep Danny away from weapon. 

“He’s…out,” Maddie said. “Spending the night at a friend’s I think.”

Jack deflated a little. “Aw. I wanted him to see the Fenton Splicer. Hey, what’s he doing spending the night at a friend’s in the middle of the week?”

“Oh, erm.” She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to tell Jack about Danny either. Not yet. Not until she knew how she was going to handle this. “We had a fight, so he’s cooling down at Tucker’s.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. Maddie bit her lip and tried to smile. It was a terrible lie. If they had had another fight, Danny would have been grounded and sent to his room. He certainly wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the house, let alone stay at a friend’s house. 

“How about I make some fudge?” A distraction was her only hope.

“Fudge?” Jack bounced. “Mmhm, that would really hit the spot.”

Maddie jumped up to start, her hands shaking. She hated keeping things from him. How had Danny been able to do this for two years?

A hand landed on either side of her shoulder and started rubbing her taut muscles. Jack leaned in next to her ear. “Whatever you two fought about, I’m sure it will be fine,” Jack said. “Danny’s a good kid. He had great parents to teach him what’s right.” 

Maddie turned to her husband and buried her face in his chest, tears finally flowing down her face. Jack wordlessly tightened his arms around her. “I hope you’re right, Jack. I hope you’re right.”

Chapter 6

Danny and Tucker played Doom well into the night, long past when they should have gone to bed. Finally, at two in the morning, they were forced to shut the game off by Tucker’s very irritated mother. 

They hadn’t done any homework, and at that point they weren’t about to. Danny had left all his stuff at home anyway; he wasn’t about to risk going back. 

Tucker passed out almost immediately, snoring quietly in the dark. Danny stretched out on the floor, wrapped tightly in a blanket. How many times had he slept here? Sam usually slept on the other side of the room, in front of Tucker’s dresser. It was comforting, almost, being here in such a familiar place. If he didn’t think about it, Danny could almost think it was just like any other sleep over. They’d wake up and go to school, and then he’d either go home or go to the Nasty Burger with them. It was routine. It was normal. It was safe. 

But this wasn’t just like any other night. He had practically run away from home, with nothing but the clothes on his back. And he didn’t know if he would ever be allowed back. He didn’t know if the next time he saw his parents it would be at the wrong end of their blasters. 

Hopefully Jazz could talk to his mom and convince her he wasn’t a bad guy. Years of prejudice though couldn’t be erased overnight. 

Even if she could…he’d probably have to tell his dad. Oh God…telling his father. And he thought telling his mother had been bad…the second he said he was Phantom his father would probably shoot first and ask questions later.

What if Maddie tells Jack tonight? What if his father already knows? Is he already building something to specifically target him? Are they already hunting him? Oh man this was the worst decision ever…he shouldn’t have told his mom. It was going to be his death. He just knew it. He wouldn’t even live to see next week. Maybe he should run now, while he still had the chance…

A shiver ran up his spine and escaped in a puff of blue through his mouth. 

Oh. Great. Because this was what he needed right now.

He shoved the blanket away and stood up, glancing at Tucker. Should he wake him? If it was just the box ghost, there wasn’t any need to. But if it was Skulker or someone else, he might need the back-up. 

Of course, there was always the chance the ghost was just passing through. But he was never that lucky. 

He stood by the window and glanced at Tucker again, buried under his blankets and still snoring. They’d only just gone to bed maybe half an hour ago, and they still had school in the morning. 

Danny transformed and phased out the window. He’d already caused too much sleep loss for his friend. He would handle this one on his own. 

The night felt good. Quiet streets under him and a black, starry sky above him. He couldn’t ask for anything better. It was calm, peaceful. Flying through nights like this…that was his favorite part about being a halfa. 

Ectoblasts flying past him and singeing his arms…that part not so much. 

“At last, whelp,” Skulker called from above. 

Danny twisted in the air and looked up at him. “Of course it’s you. You love making sure I don’t actually sleep.”

“I’m a hunter. I take whatever advantage I can get.” He leveled his arm at Danny and a small blaster lifted from his wrist. Green ectoplasm swirled in the barrel and fired. Danny dodged easily and flew up.

“Yeah, well, I’m not really in the mood. Can we reschedule for never?” Danny shot his own ectoblast at the hunter, but the ghost evaded it with the same ease. 

“A hunter hunts when he pleases. What the prey wants hardly matters.” Rocket launchers flipped open on his shoulders. They shot out, all honed in on Danny. 

“Please let this work,” he muttered, creating a green shield around himself. The rockets crashed into it, exploding on contact. The force of it sent him flying several feet back, but he managed to push back. After the last rocket, he dropped the shield and flew through the smoke, landing a flying punch against Skulker’s jaw. 

Skulker spun back and used his jets to force himself upright again. “Little whelp!” He launched another barrage, and Danny again evaded him before countering him. The fight went on for a while, neither one really gaining ground against the other.

Normally, Danny would have been frustrated with how long this was taking. He needed sleep, and he didn’t want people to wake up and find him missing. Of course, his whole secret was pretty much shot to hell at this point anyway, so that didn’t even matter. Fighting Skulker though was routine. It was another familiar feeling. 

It was comforting, almost, that even as his life crashed around him, this was still the same. He could count on the ghosts to keep coming. 

And, if he was honest with himself, slamming his hands against something repeatedly right now felt pretty good. 

Danny couldn’t tell anyone how long it went on for. Much longer than their usual fights. Skulker ran out of ammunition, and was left with his knives and hand to hand combat. Danny had stopped using his ectoblasts, unless he needed a quick shield against a blade. 

Somehow, their fight had turned from hunter vs. prey to a spar. They stopped trying for kill shots, they gave each other time to recover from a hit. Neither of them was aware of the change, or how it had happened. It just came to be that Skulker was out of ammo, and Danny didn’t have a thermos or a tech geek who could hack the ghost. So, they just kept fighting. 

Eventually, Skulker held a hand up. “Hold!” he said. 

Danny hovered in the air, his fist still raised. “What, had enough?”

“We are at a stalemate,” Skulker stated. 

“So? You want to play rock, paper, scissors or something?”

“What?”

“Never mind. What’s your point?”

“My point is that perhaps we should continue this another time, when we have had time to gather our strength again.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “So now you want to reschedule.”

“Would you prefer I make a pelt out of you now?” Skulker growled.

“As always, ew.” Danny stated. “And I don’t need to gather my strength again. I’m fine.”

Skulker raised his blade. “Very well. We will continue.”

He dived, and the fight resumed. It wasn’t the casual spar they’d been having though. This was their usual trying to beat the other to a pulp. Danny met the challenge with relish at first, but he soon realized he didn’t have as much strength as he claimed. He was still running on only a few hours of sleep from the night before, and the last hour of fighting had already drained his energy supply. 

He wasn’t that surprised when Skulker managed to grab his ankle and chuck him to the ground. He crashed into the road, creating a crater. 

“Ow,” he muttered, picking himself up. “Should have taken the offer to reschedule.”

Skulker flew down to meet him on the street. Thus far, most of their fight had been in the air, and very little property damage had actually been caused. That status changed in only a few minutes. Ectoblasts went wide and blew holes in houses. Danny crashed into numerous cars and he threw Skulker through several windows. 

The shouts of panic started soon after. People poured out of their houses, seeking better shelter. Teenagers, people Danny went to school with, had their phones out and were filming the encounter. 

“What are you doing?” Danny yelled. “Get out of here!”

They hardly even stepped back. Skulker took the opportunity while Danny was distracted to slam into him from behind, sending him flying. Danny landed in front of the crowd, and numerous hands were soon all over him, some helping him back to his feet and others just trying to hug him. He tore himself out of their grasp and turned back to Skulker. 

“This has gone on long enough,” Danny stated.

“I agree,” Skulker said, lifting his blade. 

They surged forward, exchanging blows once again. Adrenaline rushed through Danny now though. There were innocent people behind him. He couldn’t let them get hurt. This had to end.

He grabbed Skulker’s arm and shot off into the sky, dragging the hunter behind him. Once they were clear of the buildings, Danny tossed the ghost ahead of him. While Skulker spun, Danny took a deep breath and then let out his ghostly wail.

It was smaller than most of his previous ones, more focused, but it was still just as powerful. Skulker tried to push back against it at first, and he lost most of his suit in the process. When he was nothing more than a few hunks of metal and wires, he let the blast push him far into the distance. 

Danny let the wail die out and drifted back down. He panted heavily, struggling to maintain his ghost form. The world blurred in front of him as he struggled to remain conscious. He collapsed onto a roof, trembling from exhaustion, and the rings washed over him as he let himself pass out.


	4. Chapter 7 and 8

Chapter 7

The campus was barely awake when Jazz power-walked to her professor’s office. Her class didn’t start until nine, but she was hoping if Professor Toady was here early she could start the test early. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could go home and start fixing things there. 

Danny hadn’t sounded good on the phone. He hadn’t even been trying to pretend he was okay. Jazz was used to his false cheeriness, or (more likely) his confusion, but the tired voice that spoke last night was out of character. It was wrong. And she couldn’t get it out of her head. 

No, no it’s not. 

Four words had never terrified her more. It was the first time Danny had ever willingly admitted something was wrong. Worse, it had been the first time Danny had ever called because something was wrong. Usually his hero complex dictated that he handle everything by himself. But this time…he’d found something he couldn’t fix. That scared Jazz more than anything. Not the fact he couldn’t fix it (there were plenty of things he couldn’t actually fix on his own, but good luck telling him that). He didn’t think he could fix this. He was willingly asking for help. While usually a good thing, it felt more like Danny was admitting defeat. He was giving up. It was just…so unlike him.

And then her mother hadn’t answered the phone…for all she knew her parents were out hunting her little brother right now. She had hardly slept last night, thinking of the different ways her parents were trying to torture her little brother. If he had gone Tucker’s he wouldn’t be that hard to find. It would be one of the first places they’d look. He’d be a sitting duck. 

She didn’t call to tell him that. She didn’t want to worry him even more. It just meant she worried well into the morning, when she should have been resting for her test. 

This test…she could have been home if not for this stupid thing. Her family needed her. But no, she had to take a test. Granted, this was a chapter test worth a third of her grade in this class, but that wasn’t helping the situation. She hadn’t been focused on studying at all, and she knew she wouldn’t focus at all actually taking the test…she’d just have to hope for the best.

The psychology building was dimly lit, most of the hall lights still off. She climbed up to the third floor and found her way to her professor’s office. Like she’d hoped, Professor Toady was already there. 

She knocked on the door.

Toady looked up from her desk. “Ah, hello Jasmine. Come for some last minute help before the test again?”

Jazz smiled and shook her head. “No, actually. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind letting me start the test now? There’s a family emergency back home, and I’m leaving as soon I’m done this test.”

“Oh dear. I hope everything is alright?”

“Well, we’re still working on getting there, but I really need to be there for them,” Jazz said. 

Toady nodded. “Of course. Here, let me just dig one up…” she rummaged through piles on her desk, finally pulling a packet out. “You can probably go to the classroom now, but it will be noisy when everyone else comes in.”

Jazz was already scanning through the test. “That’s alright. It’ll be easier to hand it in if you’re right there when I’m done.”

“Okay. You know where to find me if you have any questions,” Toady said. She turned back to her desk as Jazz started to walk out. “Oh, one more thing!”

Jazz turned back to her. 

“Now, I’m sure I don’t really need to tell you this, but no cell phones, no looking at the book…”

Jazz smiled. “Of course not.”

Toady nodded, and Jazz sprinted down to their classroom to start filling in the answers. 

She was half way done when the rest of her class started coming in. The first of them started asking her questions, like what she was doing there already and what were some of the questions on the test. When Jazz explained she was leaving for a family emergency, they started to leave her alone. They even made sure the newcomers were quiet for her sake. 

She appreciated it, but it didn’t help her anxiety. 

Finally, at quarter to eleven, she finished. It was sloppy, her handwriting barely legible at the end, and she honestly was not sure if she finished the last word she was writing, but it was done. Jumping from her desk, she tossed the paper to Toady and ran from the room, digging her car keys from her backpack. She had already moved her car to the closest lot and thrown in a weekend suitcase. All she had to do was get in and drive. 

The drive was normally four hours. With her twisted nerves, she did the drive in three. Pulling into Amity Park was a huge relief. She was here, she was home. She could fix this. She would talk to Mom, make her see reason. She would reassure Danny, make sure he was okay. 

Everything would be fine. 

She turned a corner, nearly colliding with the end of a line of cars. 

“What’s with all the tra—Oh my god.” Her mouth fell. 

Police stood directing traffic, letting cars go through one at a time. A clean-up crew was busy at work, shoveling debris to the side of the work. 

And where the buildings should have been, the rows of town houses, were gone, laid out on the street in front of her. Beds were torn in half, books and stuffed animals poked out of piles of brick. 

“What happened?” Jazz wondered, glancing around. The destruction stretched for three blocks. Families picked through the wreckage, fresh cuts and bruises covering their faces. 

This was far more damage than a normal ghost fight. And if these people had been in their homes when it happened…it was hard to imagine there weren’t any casualties. 

The line of traffic was hardly moved, so she pulled her phone out and called Danny. She wasn’t that surprised when he didn’t answer, but her panic rose nonetheless. She called Tucker next. It went to voicemail, and she barely kept herself from hyperventilating. 

“Tucker, it’s Jazz. Call me, please.” 

She was scrolling down her list of contacts to Sam’s name when Tucker texted her.

In class still. Give me ten minutes.

Oh, right. That was still a thing. 

“How can they have school after this?” 

Part of her knew it was a silly question. Because of unpredictable ghost attacks and snowy winters, school was often cancelled. If the danger wasn’t imminent, classes would continue. 

But still…she’d have thought they’d make an exception with a disaster this bad. 

Ten minutes later she had only just turned onto the next road. Her phone rang, and she snatched it up and answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jazz,” Tucker said. 

“Tucker, what happened? I just got into town and everything’s….”

“Yeah,” Tucker cut in. “We’re not really sure. A couple people caught some of it on camera, and it looks like Danny’s wail.”

Jazz narrowed her eyes and pulled her car to the side of the road. “Hold on, what do you mean ‘looks like?’” she asked. “Didn’t Danny tell you what happened?” 

Don’t tell her he was missing…that was the last thing she needed right now. Or worse, her parents had found him as Phantom and captured him…

“Well,” Tucker started. “I haven’t seen him since we went to bed. And I was the last person with him before the fight.”

Oh this was bad. This was really, really bad. 

“Do you have any idea where he went after the fight?”

“None,” Tucker said. “But,” he didn’t continue right away.

Jazz clenched the steering wheel. “Tucker.”

“It’s just…Danny only uses his wail as a last resort,” Tucker said. “It drains him pretty badly.”

“Right…”

“So if he used the wail, that means things were pretty bad. And if it didn’t work or he missed somehow…”

Jazz’s stomach dropped to her feet. “He’d be too drained to fight back.” Whoever he’d been fighting could have easily captured him. Or anyone else that stumbled upon him. He’d be an easy target.

“There’s another option!” Sam called in the background. “His wail makes him turn back, so it’s possible he’s just passed out somewhere, too exhausted to find us.”

Jazz chewed her lip. That option was almost worse. If he was just passed out somewhere, then he would see the destruction when he woke up. With his hero complex, when he saw the damage…he’d blame himself. And since his mental state was already questionable because of the current situation with their family…who knew what he’d do.

“Damn,” Jazz cursed softly. 

“We’re about to start looking around town. Think you could snag the boo-merang from your house?” Tucker asked. 

“Yeah…yeah I can do that,” Jazz said. Find Danny. That was the number one priority right now. Handling his mental state could wait. First they had to find him.

She hung up and pulled her car back into the street, maneuvering the roads back to her house. Once she was away from the damage, the traffic cleared up some, enough that she made it home in another ten minutes. It still felt like too long.

She ran inside the house, intending to sprint all the way to the lab, but she was stopped in the kitchen by her father.

“Jazzerincess! What are you doing home?” Jack asked, a smile spread over her face.

Jazz skidded to a halt, her mind going blank. Her father was checking the calibration on a bazooka, one of many weapons laid out on the table. Wrist rays were already attacked to his forearms, and he wore a specter deflector. 

“What are you…what’s all this for?” Jazz asked.

“To hunt that no-good Phantom! He’ll pay for what he did to our city!”

“Uh…mom hasn’t talked to you, has she?”

He put the bazooka down and glanced towards the ceiling. “No…she wasn’t feeling well today. Went back to bed as soon as we heard the news. I’m getting all this stuff ready for when she’s ready!”

“Oh, that’s…thoughtful,” Jazz said. “But, uh, maybe you better hold off?”

“What for?”

“Um…” Jazz scrambled for an excuse. “Because…mom will only redo it her way.”

Jack considered that. “Well, I suppose…but it’s so much fun.”

Jazz took a deep breath. “I’m going to go talk to mom, let her know I’m home.”

“Sounds good. I’m gonna finish this calibration!”

“Yeah, you do that,” Jazz said. She turned out of the kitchen and went upstairs, rubbing a palm over her face. 

She found her mother curled in a ball under her quilt. The pillow under her face was soaked, the trails of moisture leading back to bloodshot eyes. 

“Mom?” Jazz asked. “Are you okay?” 

Violet eyes drifted up to look at Jazz.

“I’ll take that as a no…” Jazz said. She sat on the edge of the bed, putting a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “You’re conflicted about Danny, right?” 

Maddie curled into a tighter ball, pressing her face into the pillow. 

“He’s your son, and you love him, but he’s also a ghost, which you despise on principle. And with the damage to the city, you’re natural instinct to hunt the ghost responsible is warring with your natural instinct to protect your son.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Maddie whispered. “I can’t let something evil go free, but I can’t hurt Danny either.”

Jazz glanced at Maddie. “What if Phantom wasn’t evil?”

“Don’t be silly. Of course he is.” 

“Where’s your proof?”

“He’s a ghost.”

“Not a full ghost, therefore he can’t be fully evil.” 

Maddie glanced up at Jazz. “But he’s still partially evil.”

Jazz’s eyes drifted to ceiling thoughtfully. “I suppose everyone has a little bit of evil in them…that’s what keeps us balanced. But Phantom isn’t as evil as you think.”

“He destroyed half the town.”

“Three blocks is not half the town, and he didn’t do it on purpose. He was fighting another ghost, trying to protect the town.”

Maddie snorted. “Some protection.”

“You and Dad have caused property damage to and you know it.”

Maddie looked down at the mattress, her cheeks reddening. “We don’t do it on purpose.”

“And neither does Danny.”

“Well what about the time he kidnapped the mayor?” Maddie demanded. She sat up a little now, pushing the covers away.

“Kidnapped the mayor?” Jazz repeated, her mind working furiously to recall the event. “Oh, yeah he told me about that. He said some warden ghost from the ghost zone prison had framed him. The mayor was possessed by a ghost during that.”

“The ghost zone has a prison?” Maddie asked. 

Jazz smiled and shook her head. The woman may be having an existential crisis, but she was still a scientist. 

“Anyway,” Jazz went on, “Phantom didn’t kidnap the mayor.”

Maddie looked up at Jazz. She wanted so badly to believe her daughter, to believe that her son, as Danny Phantom, was someone she could trust.

“What about the crime spree he had? He stole over a million dollars in one night!”

Jazz put a hand to her chin. “Wasn’t all that returned within a couple days?” 

“They found it on that Circus Gothica train, but it wasn’t returned.”

Jazz snapped her fingers. “That’s right, that’s when that circus was in town! Danny told me all about that. Freakshow, the ringmaster, had a crystal that controlled ghosts and was using a whole crew of them to steal from every town they went to. When it came into town, Danny fell victim to it. Sam snapped him out of it somehow.”

“So why didn’t he return the money?” 

Jazz stared at her mother. “He was already ‘Public Enemy number 1,’ he wasn’t going to hang around and talk to police.” 

“He still should have owned up to it and explained it to us.” 

“Would you have listened?” Jazz countered. 

Maddie opened her mouth to rebuke the insult, but then she had to shut it again. If she was honest with herself, then she knew the answer. If Phantom had been found with the money, he would have been shot on sight and they would have tried to arrest him. They wouldn’t have listened to any ‘mind control’ story. 

“I suppose not,” Maddie said. She drew her knees to her chest. 

Jazz reached down to her bag and pulled out her scrapbook. “I think you should look at this,” she said, passing the book to her mother. “I have to go find Danny right now, but you read that. I’ll have my phone on if you need to talk.”

Maddie took the scrapbook and Jazz walked out of the room. The cover of the binder was pink, Jazz’s handwriting covering the top half in her neat scrawl. The first page was covered in news articles about Danny Phantom, detailing some of his fights. Maddie read each one and then flipped the page, looking for more. To her surprise, the article on this page wasn’t about a fight. It was about Phantom helping to clear away some of the debris from a fight and using his strength to pop out some dents in cars. 

She remembered seeing this article, scoffing at it, thinking it was an act for Phantom to get closer to people and earn their trust. But knowing what she knew now…knowing about Danny’s kindness, she could see it differently. It wasn’t an act. It was genuine. 

She flipped through the book, finding similar articles. Any article that depicted Danny negatively had Jazz’s handwriting next to it, explaining what had happened. There were numerous photos of Danny pasted to the pages, most printed out from the computer. A lot of them were grainy shots of him flying, a few were action shots of him fighting. 

Here, at last, was what her son had been doing for the last two years. All the late nights, all the injuries, all the secrets explained. She finally had the truth.

Chapter 8

Jack watched his daughter from the bottom step. Jazz tore through the lab, ripping through boxes and dumping their equipment all over the floor. Jack didn’t bother to warn her about being careful. A manic desperation had seized the young woman, a kind of rawness Jack had never seen. Jazz was always so composed, the opposite of the rest of them. It was disconcerting to see her so wild now, upending boxes and throwing things behind her without any regard for where it went.

“Uh, Jazz? What are you looking for?” he finally asked.

“The Boo-merang!” she yelled. She yanked open a closet and shoved things to the side, rifling through each shelf. 

“The Boo-merang?” Jack repeated, putting a hand to his chin in thought. “Danny said it was broken, so he threw it out. I grounded him for not asking me first.”

Jazz froze. “He wouldn’t,” she said, staring resolutely at the closet. “He knows we need that to find him sometimes.”

“What are you talking about?” Jack asked. “The Boo-merang is designed to find ghosts.” 

“It locked onto Danny the first time you used it,” Jazz explained. “And ever since, it only ever tracked him. It’s come in handy when he goes missing, so I can’t imagine he would get rid of it, no matter how annoying he finds it…” 

“When has Danny gone missing?” Jack asked. “And why would it track him? He’s not a ghost.”

Jazz didn’t answer, too busy trying to think of what to do. Danny wouldn’t have thrown it out, but it would make sense if he had taken it to prevent his parents from using it. 

Her eyes widened, and she bolted for the stairs, weaving around Jack and running back through the kitchen. He followed at her heels, all the way to Danny’s room. 

“He wouldn’t have wanted you guys to use it accidentally and question why it tracked him, so he would have kept it away from you guys.” She tore through Danny’s room the same way she had the lab, dumping his belongings all over the floor in her search. She held no regard for his privacy, opening every drawer and searching every cranny. Books crashed to the ground, and one of his favorite model rockets shattered when she accidentally knocked it over.

Jack stood safely in the doorway, his jumbled thoughts forming together. “Is Danny missing right now?”

“Yes, which is why I need to find the Boo-merang!” 

Maddie joined Jack in the doorway, still wearing her pajamas. She clutched a pink binder to her chest like it was a life line. “What’s going on?”

“Jazz thinks the Boo-merang can find Danny, even though he’s not a ghost,” Jack said. 

Maddie didn’t bother trying to explain it to Jack right now. She was still trying to wrap her own head around everything. What she could focus on though was the fact that Danny had taken the Boo-merang.

“Was he really that paranoid?” Maddie asked, glancing at her whirlwind daughter. Taking their inventions, especially old ones that they hardly used, seemed like an extreme way to keep his secret. 

Jazz paused and looked at her mother. “Considering how you reacted yesterday, can you blame him?”

Maddie bit her cheek, guilt twisting her insides. 

“Jasmine!” her father scolded. 

Jazz took a deep breath. “Right, not helping. Sorry, Mom, I’m just really worried.” She went back to tearing through Danny’s room. “Danny already gets really guilty whenever something is damaged or someone gets hurt, and last night was really bad. If someone doesn’t talk some sense into him soon, he’s probably going to do something really stupid.”

“What kind of stupid?” Maddie asked. She crossed her arms tightly, glancing at the picture again. 

“Disappear into the ghost zone, try and become full ghost, fly into space again…” 

“Hold on,” Jack said. “What are you saying?”

Jazz froze and glanced at her mother. Maddie looked up at Jack and then at her daughter. Her arms tightened around the scrapbook, and she took a deep breath. 

“Our son is apparently more invested in the family business than we thought,” she said.

“Really? He wants to fight ghosts?” Jack’s eyes brightened. “Why didn’t he ever say so?”

“It’s not that simple Dad,” Jazz said, walking closer to him. “He has been fighting them, for the last two years actually. But he doesn’t fight them the way you do.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Maddie handed him the scrapbook. “You might want to sit down.”

Jack leafed through the book. “This is all about that punk Phantom.” 

Both women winced. “Dad, the thing about Phantom…he’s not all ghost. He’s part human too.”

“Really? How do you know? How is that even possible?” 

“I don’t know the science of it,” Jazz said, but I know he’s part human because I know his human half.” 

“Human half?” Jack repeated. The gears in his head whirred, and he glanced around the room and then at the pictures in his hand. “You don’t mean…”

Jazz and Maddie nodded. “Danny Phantom is also Danny Fenton, my little brother.” 

Jack’s eyes widened and he stumbled back. “Our son is Phantom? But…he never died.”

“No,” Jazz agreed. “He’s not dead. Believe me, I’ve checked dozens of times. He still has a pulse and he still needs to eat and sleep and everything, just like a regular human.”

Jack visibly relaxed, his shoulders loosening and a long breath coming out of his mouth. “That’s good. Oh! That explains why all my inventions go haywire around him! I knew they weren’t faulty!”

“Yeah,” Jazz said. “That’s why.”

“So how did this happen? And how long has he been hiding it? What exactly can he do?”

“One at a time Dad,” Jazz said. “Do you remember the portal accident, a few years ago?”

“Yeah…oh, that makes sense. If Danny was blasted with any of the ecto-energy as it turned on, it could contaminate him enough to give him ghost-like powers.” 

“But enough to completely change his entire genetic make-up?” Maddie asked. 

Jack put a hand to his chin. “It would probably depend on how much he was blasted with.”

“Oh, he got quite a lot,” Jazz muttered. 

“Does he have any special powers?” Jack asked. 

“A couple,” Jazz said. “He can duplicate himself, but not for very long, last I heard; And he has this ghostly wail, but he tries not to use it if he can avoid it.”

“Is that what destroyed the city earlier?” Maddie asked. 

Jazz turned to her mother and nodded. 

“I still don’t understand why Danny wouldn’t tell us,” Jack said. “He knows he can trust us!”

“He wanted to tell you guys, he really did. But…he was scared. You always went on about how you’d ‘rip him apart molecule by molecule’ so he just kept quiet.”

“But…we never would have done that to him! And if we had known, then we never would have made those threats!”

Jazz blew out a puff of air. The fact that he said it so confidently and easy meant so much. Jack trusted Danny wholeheartedly, even though he had just learned his son was also his greatest enemy. 

“But…” Maddie started. “The fact that our son is Phantom doesn’t bother you?”

“He’s still our son. I couldn’t hate Danny.”

Maddie shook her head. Jack’s childish naivety had always been endearing, but now it was just astonishing.

Jazz walked back to Danny’s bed, kneeling on the floor. “You guys both need to sit down with Danny and talk with him.” 

“That’s a great idea!” Jack said. “I can ask him all sort of questions about his powers!”

Jazz rolled her eyes. “That’s fine, but you can’t ask if we can’t find him.”

Reality crashed around the parents. Their son was missing.

Jack was checked the higher places in Danny’s room, the spots Jazz couldn’t reach. Maddie half-heartedly looked around, her mind still in turmoil. She didn’t understand how Jack could just change his whole perception so easily. They had believed Phantom was evil for so long…and as soon as he finds out Phantom is their son he’s all gung-ho about trusting him. 

Maddie was easily the more cautious of the two, that was what balanced their marriage. But was he right? Should it be that easy to change her entire world-view? To just suddenly believe that Phantom wasn’t evil?

She lifted a picture off the wall and checked the back of it before hanging it back on the wall. Her gaze rested on it a moment longer, and a smile curled on her face. 

The photo had been taken years ago, before construction on the portal had even begun. It was of her and Danny outside the ice cream shop. She had her arm around Danny’s shoulders, and he was leaning into her side, that wide innocent smile splitting his face. 

They used to be so close. She had thought high school was what had caused them to drift; it was common for teenagers to distance themselves from their parents after all. But now she knew it was more than that. He had distanced himself because of fear. 

Fear of her. 

And now, if they couldn’t find him, she might never see him again. They might never be able to close the gap that had grown between them. 

Could she stand losing her son forever?

“Mom?” Jazz asked. 

Jack put a model rocket down and came over to her. “Mads, he isn’t just Phantom. Maybe we don’t understand everything, but if we don’t find him now we never will.” 

He isn’t just Phantom. 

No, he wasn’t. He was a high school student, obsessed with space and video games and those scary movies. He was moody, secretive, but kind and generous. 

He’s a real hero. I wish you could see that.

Maybe there was more to Phantom than just being an evil ghost. Maybe there were good ghosts. Maybe, just maybe, Phantom could be trusted. 

Danny could certainly be trusted. 

Maddie smiled at her daughter. “Let’s find that Boo-merang.” She resumed the search, this time with more enthusiasm.


	5. Chapter 9 and Epilogue

Chapter 9

He had screwed up. He had majorly screwed up. He had created an entire new level of how badly someone could screw up. 

The destruction stretched for three blocks. Three. Entire. Blocks. Countless numbers of houses destroyed. Families left without homes, everything they owned ruined. And how many people had been hurt? He’d seen dozens of people with scratches and dark bruises. How many others had broken bones? How many were in the hospital?

How many had he killed?

He grabbed at his hair and rocked back and forth in his corner. So much destruction, so much pain, so much hurt…and it was his fault. It was all his fault. If he had just had a thermos…if he hadn’t fought Skulker for so long. He shouldn’t have stalled. He should have woken Tucker up. Tucker probably had a thermos in his room somewhere. He could have sucked Skulker in, prevented this entire disaster. 

Should have done it differently. Anything. Anything would have been better. He would rather have been caught and made into a pelt for Skulker than do what he’d done. If he’d known the fight would have ended like that, he would have let Skulker go. Better he terrorize the town and do minimal damage than Danny destroy three blocks. 

How could he have let that happen? He’d thought he had control of his powers. He’d thought he knew exactly what he was doing. But waking up that morning, seeing the devastation…

It was like someone shoved blood blossoms in his stomach. Eating flowers wouldn’t fix this problem though. He didn’t know what would. There was no changing what had happened. 

He had been careless, pure and simple. All because he couldn’t handle what was going on at home, because he couldn’t just relax and trust his sister. And people had gotten hurt because of it. 

No wonder people hated ghosts so much. Even when trying to help, they could still mess it up. Maybe his parents had the right idea. Never trust a ghost, not even him. 

He bit down on his knuckles, his eyes shut tight. 

Who was he if he wasn’t a protector? 

What was he supposed to do? Where was he supposed to go? 

He didn’t know. He didn’t have a clue. 

Time moved around him, but for Danny it didn’t matter. He was stuck in a horrible nightmare, one he didn’t know how to wake up from. This wasn’t one of Nocturn’s dreamscapes…he couldn’t just shock himself awake. This was real life, and therefore much, much worse.

Voices floated through the alley. Bitter, hushed, excited; neighbors passing by, going about their day. There were too many of them. They were coming too close. They were going to find him, and then they’d let him have it for destroying their homes. He deserved every bit of it, but he didn’t want to be found. 

It had been all he could do to find this corner after he woke up. The sun had blasted him, waking him only a few hours after he’d passed out. He’d pushed himself to his feet and looked around to figure out where he was. And then he froze, eyes glued to the wasteland before him. Rubble stretched for half a mile where houses used to be. He knew, just knew, it was his fault. He knew the power of his wail, how destructive it could be. 

He had collapsed to his knees, struggling to keep himself together. He hadn’t meant for that to happen…he hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt. 

Voices drifted up to him from the street, and then the sobs of crying children. Guilt churned in his stomach. He was too close, they would find him, he would have to admit he’d screwed up and couldn’t fix it…

So he ran, sprinted down the steps of the fire escape and then disappeared into the city, looking for a quiet place to hide. He remained as Fenton, a more inconspicuous screw up than Phantom. Besides, he didn’t have the energy needed to transform. 

He’d found an alley on the opposite of town, mostly filled with dumpsters. He wedged himself into a space and curled in on himself, thinking maybe if he made himself small enough he could actually disappear…

But he didn’t disappear. He stayed stubbornly solid for hours, hunched in that little ball, his face pressed into his knees, with nothing but his guilt. 

How could I have let that happen? I should have known better…I shouldn’t have gone out by myself…it was stupid. I’m so stupid. 

The thoughts ran through his head in an endless circle. He really was nothing but a menace, just like every other ghost. 

Something smacked into the back of his head and bounced in front of him, metal tinging on the ground. 

“Ow!” He pulled his face from his knees, blurry eyes landing on his least favorite invention. “The Boo-merang?” The last he’d seen of this, he’d taped it to the back of his desk and pushed it against the wall. He’d never even told anyone what he’d done with it, though he’d meant to at least tell Sam and Tucker eventually…

So what was it doing here?

“Danny!” Jazz yelled, sliding into his view and crouching in front of him. “Danny, are you okay? Are you hurt?” She put her hands on his shoulders, her eyes checking him over for injury.

“Jazz?”

His parents ran into view. “Danny!”

He jumped to his feet, using the wall to push himself up. Uncurling from his ball was painful, spreading pins and needles through his legs. 

“Mom? Dad?”

“Oh Danny are you alright?”

Danny didn’t answer; there were too many questions in his head. His gaze pinballed between his parents and his sister, at the concerned looks he was getting. Finally, his confused look settled on his sister, begging for answers to questions he didn’t know how to ask. 

Luckily, she understood most of what he needed. “It’s okay Danny. They both know, and it’s okay.”

They both know? He looked at his father. 

Jack smiled. “You should have told us you were Phantom! We would have stopped shooting at you!”

A small laugh bubbled in Danny’s stomach, going far enough to spread his mouth in a thin smile, but it was gone just as fast. 

His eyes travelled back to his mother. And he couldn’t help but think of her, of the terror on her face as she backed away. Of how that terror was justly deserved, considering what he’d done that morning. 

Jazz took his wrist. “Danny, it’s okay. They aren’t going to hurt you. Trust me.”

“Yeah, but…I wouldn’t blame them.” He pulled his wrist out of her grasp, pressing himself back against the wall. 

“Oh Danny,” Maddie said. She switched places with her daughter and put a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Danny I’m so sorry for yesterday. I was confused and scared and it took me a while to wrap my head around.”

He tried to shake her hand off, but he didn’t have much room to maneuver. “No mom, you’re right! Ghosts are evil! All we do is destroy, even if we’re trying to help!” He pressed himself back into the wall, intending to slide down into his ball, but he couldn’t.

Maddie grabbed his arm and pulled him into her, wrapping her arms around him. “Danny, that’s not true. You have helped people. I was blinded by my own beliefs; I couldn’t see the truth, even when it was right in front of me.”

“But all those people…” he whispered.

“We’ll find a way to fix it,” Maddie said. “Homes can be rebuilt.”

“That’s right!” Jack said. “Rebuilt and upgraded! All the homes in this town are full of outdated systems! Now they can make new and improved homes!”

“What if they didn’t want them?” Danny asked. “They don’t get a say in this at all…”

Jazz put a hand on his arm. “It’ll be okay Danny. It was an accident, that’s all. Now we just have to make the best of what we’ve got.”

He looked at her over his mother’s shoulder, and then at his dad. His gaze finally drifted to his mother’s, and the sobs he’d been holding back broke through. He clung to his mother, burying his face in her shoulder. She rubbed circles in his back and swayed with him, muttering over and over that it was okay, that they loved him and that they weren’t going anywhere. 

Jack walked to their side and surrounded both of them in his arms, opening them briefly for Jazz to enter. The four of them stood for a while like that, their arms around each other. Danny’s sobs died down, but he made no move to end the hug-fest. It had been a long time since he’d hugged either of his parents, or even his sister for that matter. It had been a long time since he’d felt like he could. But there were no more secrets, no more walls between them. He didn’t have a second life standing behind him, whispering ‘what if’s into his ear. He could just enjoy this right now; enjoy his family and the unconditional love they gave him. 

After all, if his parents could look past over a decade of prejudice against ghosts and still say they loved him, even after his screw up that morning, there was probably nothing he could do that would turn them against him. 

As terrible as the last few days had been, they were worth it. The fact that he knew now, without a doubt, that his family would always be there, made all the stress worth it. 

It would mean changes, but they would be changes for the better. 

Okay, I know that sounds like an ending, but I have one more chapter for y’all! Stay tuned for an epilogue!

In the meantime, please review!

Epilogue

“So how are things going at home?” Sam asked, handing off a bowl of popcorn before sitting down. 

The trio was spending the night at her place, holding a movie marathon of their favorite zombie movies. It had been almost two weeks since everything had happened.

“They’re actually pretty good,” Danny replied. “My parents asked me to demonstrate a few things for them, but they haven’t even asked for blood samples or tried to take any of my hair.”

“I bet Jazz talked to them about that,” Tucker said. He held two movies in front of him, glancing back and forth. 

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Danny said. He tossed a handful of popcorn into his mouth. “Honestly though, it’s been really great. I don’t have to lie or come up with excuses anymore. And the other night, I ran into a ghost on the way home. The fight took a while, and eventually my parents showed up! I actually caught the ghost with their help!”

“That’s awesome!” Sam said. “And it should make things easier at school too.”

“You have no idea,” Danny said. “Mom already told me she’s willing to cover for me if I need to skip, so long as I let her know first and get back to school as soon as possible.”

“Man, maybe you should tell my parents too!” Tucker complained.

Sam threw popcorn at him. “You do not get in that much trouble and you know it. Your parents hardly even ground you when you get in trouble.”

“Yeah, but the lecture is still awful.”

“Let me think about it Tuck,” Danny said. 

Sam and Tucker looked at him. “Danny?”

“Dude, I was kidding,” Tucker said. “You don’t have to.”

“Yeah, but maybe it is time for them to know,” Danny said. 

“Well, it’s your call, but don’t feel like you have to. Seriously.”

Tucker finally settled on a movie and slipped the disc into the dvd player. Picking up the remote, he took his place on the other side of Danny. “In any case, tonight we kick back with some good movies!”

“Yeah,” Danny said. 

It was strange, adjusting to the idea that his parents knew. But after he’d gone home, they’d ordered pizza and asked to hear some of his stories. He spent the whole night talking about his other life, and it felt great to finally be able to share this with them. And whether or not Jazz had talked to them about not treating him like an experiment, they had been really good with that too. He had no doubt it was coming; their scientific curiosity could only be held back for so long, but he’d be ready when they did. It wouldn’t feel like that’s all they cared about. 

He wished he could say rebuilding the town was going as well. He’d shown up as Phantom the next day and apologized for the damage, asking if he could help with the clean-up and rebuilding. He’d gotten bricks thrown at him before he high-tailed it out of there. Since that wasn’t enough for his conscience, he decided to help out as Fenton. With his parents’ help, he created a whole volunteer crew to help everybody, even recruiting kids from school. 

The process was slow-going as a human, but he didn’t mind. He would have been there tonight and tomorrow if his friends and family hadn’t insisted he take a night off to relax. And how could he say no to a movie marathon of the greatest zombie movies of all time?

Danny glanced at his best friends and smiled. They’d always supported him, and now he had his parents too. Maybe…maybe letting other people know wasn’t such a bad idea. He could tell Tucker’s parents…they certainly deserved to know after the number of times he’d shown up without warning and whisked Tucker away. Sam’s parents…okay, maybe not them. They didn’t like him as Fenton or Phantom. No reason to tell them the two were one and the same. 

Maybe he could tell Valerie though…she might be more inclined to listen to him now that they’d worked together to help Danielle. And if he could get another ghost hunter off his back, that would really help. On the other hand, Valerie might still hate Phantom enough that she would rat him out to the GIW. That definitely wasn’t something he wanted to risk. 

“Danny? You okay?” Sam asked. “You’ve been staring at me for five minutes.”

“Huh? Oh, sorry, I was just thinking.” 

Sam raised a brow. “What about?”

“Just how awesome everything is now.”

“Well things are about to get gory!” Tucker said, eyes glued to the screen. “Here comes the first wave of zombies!” 

Danny’s attention quickly went to the screen, and he allowed himself to be absorbed in the storyline. 

Things might not be perfect, but they were alright. And that was good enough for Danny.

Across town, Maddie Fenton was thinking the same thing as she looked at Danny’s latest report card. None of his grades were higher than a C, and all of his teachers complained about how he missed class or slept through them. They moaned about missing homework and a lack of interest on Danny’s part, all things that had been said in all of Danny’s high school report cards. 

Normally, Maddie would call her son home and demand an explanation, demand to know how a Fenton could dare earn anything less than a B. And normally, Danny would just sit there and apologize and say he’d do better. He’d try and get some extra credit. But they both knew it wouldn’t actually happen. 

This time, Maddie had another idea. She’d been one of the ones insisting Danny take a night off and relax. He’d hardly had any downtime in the last two weeks, between helping with the reconstruction and ghost fights and homework. But it was a Friday night, and he deserved to be a normal teen once in a while. The reconstruction would go on without him, and he didn’t have homework due in the morning. 

She’d let him have tonight and tomorrow, and then Sunday she’d sit down with him and go over his homework, helping where she could. They’d work out a system to help him manage his time, maybe insist that they take over some of the ghost fights during the day. Now that Danny knew he could call on them, they could work together to protect the city. 

It wouldn’t get his grades up enough in time for him to get to a top college like Jazz, but it would be enough. 

And that was fine with Maddie. Her little boy would be just fine.


End file.
